Danny Phantom: Reaper Chronicles
by K.P. Grace
Summary: It's Here! Begins during "One of a Kind". Danny becomes a target as his existence is considered an anomaly.  So a young reaper is sent to fulfill the task. May contain slight x-over with Bleach. Pairings uncertain.
1. Chapter 1

**I did say I was gonna upload this after finishing the other chapter of my Bleach fic, but I just couldn't leave this alone sitting in my stories folder while this pilot was already finished.**

**Disclaimer: Danny Phantom belongs to Butch Hartman.**

**Warning: As I have mentioned in the summary, this might contain elements from Bleach ((c) Tite Kubo). So if you dislike it for any reason, please do not flame when you can always click the 'Back' button on your browser and look for other stories.**

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><p><strong>DANNY PHANTOM: REAPER CHRONICLES<strong>

**I. DEATH AND PHANTOM**

Where do we go when we die?

For countless years, humans have often pondered and wondered the answer to such a simple yet difficult question. With the dawn and spread of religion, they have come to the common agreement that once the physical body has given out, the soul that departs have only two places where it can go—if the person has been good in his or her life, they will be granted passage to a grand paradise where they spend the rest of eternity in happiness; however, if the person has lived a life of crime and sin, they can only expect an afterlife in an abyss of fire, eternal retribution and suffering.

But what about those who can't go to either of those planes? Where do they go? Well, believe it or not, there are times when souls get stuck in their journey and become bound to the World of the Living. For the most part, these souls are ones who had died either violently or so suddenly, that they don't even know that they're already dead. Some are in constant denial, refusing to accept their fate. Some, who are actually aware of their death, are filled with so much grief that they grow to envy and sometimes loathe the living for being still alive. Others simply can't leave due to their lingering attachment to the World of the Living, mostly due to their unfinished business, or certain personal obsessions.

Despite all this, the Universal Creator, by its mercy, created a special world for the ones stuck in between—a world to serve as a form of refuge for the lost souls which was created from the Earth's shadow, where they will stay until their troubles are resolved, their unfinished businesses fulfilled, and their obsessions satisfied. This world, parallel and connected to the Earth, is known to some as The Ghost Zone.

You might be asking yourself, "How do they get there?" This is a very understandable question as the deceased souls don't exactly have a clue themselves. That's where the soul reapers come in.

That's right, I said soul reapers. It's a more 'age appropriate' term for grim reapers. Not 'The Grim Reaper' though. Take note of the case difference.

Confused? Then let me explain. There is no such thing as a single Grim Reaper; in fact, there are many all across the globe. It just so happens that the most famous one was the scythe wielding skeleton in the flowing black hooded cloak. These soul reapers work in their respective countries or areas of influence, seeking out the dead and dying to help them get started on their journey in the afterlife, and also seeking out the lost to guide them home. Once their work is done, the return to their base of operations—located in several hidden pocket dimensions scattered all over the Ghost Zone called Spirit Nations, which serve not only as their home, but home for other souls who have, as the saying goes, moved on—like a heaven of sorts. The number of spirit nations currently in existence is almost parallel to the number of nations on Earth.

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><p>Fiddler's Green, home of the American soul reapers, is a relatively most recent spirit nation to come to existence—having been established when the first thirteen colonies in the New World were founded. Its appearance is a reflection of the middle 1800's, very much unlike its modern counterpart in the World of the Living. In its very center is Union City, the city founded for its grim reaper population and serve as the capital. Its most distinguishing feature is the Davy Jones Tower—the tallest built structure in the area. Meanwhile, the civilian population lived on numerous districts that surrounded the reaper city.<p>

Putting that aside, let's go over inside the grim reaper city—passing by the bustling reapers in their navy blue, gold accented cavalry uniforms (and some with long white coats) and civilians (which must be their families), up the only tower, and into a dimly lit office room as the curtains were keeping the sunlight from entering. Behind the long wooden desk a figure sat strait, with its elbows resting on top of the arms of the chair it sat on and its white gloved fingers intertwined, hiding half of its mustachioed elderly face. It was clad in uniform with an open and rather elaborate white coat draped over its intimidating broad shoulders like a cape, and a white admiral's hat sat atop its head of long wavy silver hair. Judging by its looks, this person was a high ranking soul reaper.

The unnamed reaper's gaze was fixed on another much younger looking reaper, which appeared to look like an adolescent. It was clearly of a much lower rank as it wore no white coat over its uniform. The only oddity the youngster's uniform had was the presence of a strange looking blue and gold-accented necktie. It gazed back at the elder reaper with its round dark green eyes, trying to not appear nervous or intimidated. A thin lock of long brown hair that was previously tucked along with the rest under the cavalry hat, slipped right between the eyes, but did nothing to get it out of the way.

"You sent for me, sir?" the younger of the two asked in a soft clear female voice.

"Yes," the elder replied in his own rough baritone. "But before I tell you why you are here, let me ask you: Have you heard of the so-called _'halfa'_?"

The younger reaper got confused. "I beg your pardon, sir? A what now?"

"A _'halfa'_, young reaper. There have been rumors going around in the Ghost Zone about it—a half human, half ghost hybrid to put it simply."

The younger couldn't help but be rather flabbergasted at the information she was just given. Is the elder finally off his rocker? "Half human, half ghost? Surely you jest."

"I jest not. Such rumors of this hybrid have been spreading in the Ghost Zone as well as Fiddler's Green and other spirit nations. According to the rumors, this peculiar hybrid has been fighting off ghosts that have escaped into the World of the Living and sends them back into the Ghost Zone. I couldn't believe it myself and just to make sure, I sent an agent to a place called Amity Park where the ghost-human hybrid was said to live, to do some spying for me."

The younger listened with bated breath as the elder went on.

"The agent confirmed that he had spotted a young man snow white hair, and glowing green eyes clad in a black jumpsuit fighting and sealing a rogue soul in a metal canister." He handed over a piece of glossy paper to the younger reaper. Upon looking at it, it turned out to be a photo of a teenager that matched her superior's descriptions. From what she can see, the photo was caught while the hybrid was in action.

"Not only that," he gave her another photo. "He also caught him changing into a human." The second photo held the image of what probably was the same young man except this time; he had black hair, blue eyes, and wore a simple white shirt with a red oblong on the chest, faded blue jeans, and red sneakers. A third photo under it showed the same boy right in the middle of transforming. The young soul reaper put the three photos together for comparison and found that the boys shown looked exactly the same—with the exception being their hair color, eye color, style of clothing, and the presence of the white spectral aura.

"How is it possible," she stared at the pictures with a frown, "for someone, let alone someone so young, to have one foot on life and the other in death? It's…It's unnatural."

The elder reaper nodded. "My sentiments exactly; while his choice to use his powers to protect his town from the dangerous rogue souls that escape from the Ghost Zone is honorable, and as ferrymen of souls who double as protectors of the spiritual balance, the existence of such a creature is an anomaly. And anomalies must be dealt with accordingly."

The elder's face then became stern. "Junior soul reaper, Marceline LeGrimm…" The younger one snapped in attention at the sound of her name. "Are you ready for your first independent mission?" The young reaper now known as Marceline nearly gasped. Independent missions weren't usually given until juniors get promoted to journeymen.

She became nervous, yet excited at the same time at the prospect, for she had never gone on a mission alone. "C-Captain Jones," she said. "A-Are you sure I'm ready? I thought—"

"I'm familiar with the rules and regulations, Miss LeGrimm," the elder soul reaper we now know as Capt. Jones said. "However, I have seen and heard about your excellent synchronization with your Deathscythes and astounding rate in progress despite having recently graduated out of the academy. There is also the added plus of your physical age appearance and diminutive stature that could prove to be of great advantage to you…Also, you're the youngest of all reapers to come even close to unlocking your Transcendence."

Marceline, though proud at the mention of her near achievement, tried hard not to appear indignant at the implication of her physical size. "Sir, did you just call me short?"

Fortunately, the captain commander didn't seem to have heard her quip. "Are you up for it, Miss LeGrimm?" he asked once more. Marceline stood straight fast at the sound of her superior's voice and gave an immediate "Yes, sir!" Capt. Jones nodded, pleased with her answer.

"Very well then," he said. "You will be going…on a search-and-destroy mission in which you will be stationed in Amity Park for a maximum of two months in Earth's time. Your task will be to hunt down and eliminate the human-ghost hybrid, Danny Phantom."

The junior reaper took a moment to let the information sink in little by little as the elder spoke and maintained a straight face while listening. Her heart was beating fast in the mixture of anxiety and excitement. On one hand, she couldn't wait to finally go out to the World of the Living all on her own and the possibility of rising up and gaining a new title along with the perks that came with it; on the other hand, seeing this was her first mission by herself, she was worried and a little fearful of failing or something worse. She thought of various possible scenarios of what could happen should she truly fail—the worst of it being kicked out of Fiddler's Green and into the Ghost Zone to spend the rest of eternity as a ghost.

"When will you be ready to depart, Miss LeGrimm?" Capt. Jones asked when he finished with the briefing.

"As soon as possible, captain."

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><p>Amity Park, Minnesota, at night. Everything in this seemingly normal city at this time seemed so peaceful and quiet—for the most part anyway…<p>

We set our sights to the city harbor where pair of large oak doors silently fades into existence near the dock with a soft flash of light. The doors then open with a soft creaking from the hinges. A look to these mysterious open doors and one would see nothing but a brilliant white void. From within that void, the faint sound of footsteps could be heard. Not long after, someone emerged—the soul reaper, Marceline.

Marceline stopped a few feet away from the door before it closed with a muffled thud and disappeared without a trace. She looked around, assessing the situation.

"Hmm…It's very quiet," she said. "I can't even sense any spectral presences. Wonder why they made this place a Code Blue area." A Code Blue label meant that the area was at least moderately haunted. But true enough, everything was normal all around her.

"Did I end up in the wrong place? I'd better make a call." She then reached into her hidden pants pocket and pulled out a small handheld that looked suspiciously like an iPhone. After scrolling through her list of contacts, she gently pressed a gloved finger on her selection on the touchscreen and waited as it started to ring.

There was a click on the other end of the line as the contactee picked up and a nerdy boy around her age with pale skin, semi-spiky hair, brown eyes, and rectangular glasses in a lab coat appeared on the screen.

"Hey, Archie," the junior reaper said in greeting.

Archie waved at her from the screen. "Oh, hey Marceline," he said. "How's it going for your first mission alone?"

"I haven't really gotten started yet," she told him. "I'm not even sure if I'm in the right place. Amity Park was supposedly labeled a Code Blue on the Haunting Scale, but so far, I haven't detected any signs of ghosts around here."

"Would you like me to go and check for you? If you turn your tracker on, I might just be able to point your exact location via computer."

"Well, I—" The junior reaper was cut off in an abrupt and totally unexpected way when she felt an otherworldly presence not far off. She turned around and looked towards the sky as a strange broad bodied ghost with a green flaming mohawk flew by just several feet away from her. It didn't seem to have taken notice to her presence as it just went on before disappearing behind a warehouse close by.

"Marceline?" Archie asked when the former fell silent. "Are you okay?"

The girl turned back to her iPhone. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just sensed and seen a ghost fly past me. No need to double-check on my location. I'm definitely in the right place."

Archie nodded in acknowledgement. "If you say so."

"I'll call back as soon as possible." She moved to cut off the connection, but was stopped when Archie suddenly told her to wait. "Something wrong?" she asked.

Archie was fidgeting from where he sat, looking anxious for some reason. "Uh, it's just that…are you sure you'd be able to handle being by yourself? I mean, as juniors, we aren't exactly allowed to go off anywhere without being in a platoon."

Marceline let out a rather exasperated sigh. "Archibald Poindexter, we already went through this," she said. "I'll be fine. Captain Davy Jones personally sent me on this mission. If he didn't think I could do it, he would have sent someone else preferably of a higher rank." She smiled at him. "Also, I've seen the pictures—half ghost or not, the kid's a broomstick. Even you'd be able to take him on without a problem,"

"Hey! What does that mean?" the young male junior reaper, who got a bit offended by the remark, asked.

Marceline chuckled. "Sorry, my bad. Anyway, I'm gonna have to talk to you later. I have to go after that spook I saw earlier and see if I get any leads on the ghost boy."

"Ghost boy, huh?" Archie asked. "You know, I'm still finding it hard to wrap my head at the idea of someone being half-alive and half-dead at the same time."

"Tell me about it," Marceline agreed. "Well, I seriously gotta go now. I promise to go back safely."

"Ok, take care of yourself."

"I will. Bye now." With that, the two junior reapers cut their communication off. Marceline's put the device back in her pocket and looked on to the direction the where the first ghost she saw, determined to get her mission done as soon as possible. She took off running.

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><p>Warehouse 5 was just one of the others that lined Amity Park pier whose purpose was nothing more than serve as a storage facility for the hundreds of crates and boxes that filled and took their place by the walls. Nary could a sound be heard other than some mice nibbling on a fallen piece of cookie dropped hours before…or at least it was until the sound of something crashing down and a loud pained scream rang in the air all of a sudden. An unknown specter flies through the wall from out of nowhere as its scream goes on and crashed on a stack of boxes, creating a messy heap.<p>

From the same wall another spook poked its head and searches for the first with its angry gaze. Finding no sign so far, it pulled the rest of its body all the way through and made itself tangible. From there, we could see that the second spook took on the appearance of a young teenage boy with white hair, green eyes, and a black and white jumpsuit.

It was none other than Danny Phantom—the once full human teenager whose became a half-ghost due to a freak accident in his parents' newly built ghost portal a couple of months back. Unfortunately, he is also the target of assassination by a certain young soul reaper.

The ghost Danny had been chasing emerged from the pile of fallen boxes not long after thanks to its intangibility. It appeared to be a portly blue skinned man dressed in a mover's outfit. He and Danny made eye contact for a few seconds.

"Beware! I am the Box Ghost!" he declared. "I have power over all things cardboard and square!"

Danny disregarded the announcement and just looked at him with a clearly annoyed look on his face.

"Right, can't we just get this over with? I have a test to study for," he said.

"Study? There will be no time to study…" The Box Ghost then made several boxes float and gather around himself using his power, "…when you find yourself buried underneath the forgotten possessions of—" He stopped to look at the label on one of the boxes. "—Elliot Kravitz, from Arlington Heights, Illinois!"

He turned to face the hybrid once more with a sinister grin. His eyeballs glowed green as he opened the boxes with his powers and sent their contents hurtling at Danny, who did nothing but make himself intangible once more and let the objects pass through him harmlessly, hitting the wall behind him and falling in a clutter on the floor. The Box Ghost let out a silent gasp at seeing his attack fail.

"Ugh! I don't have time for this." He turned behind him. "Hey Tucker, let's go!"

There was a shout, followed by a loud bang as the door was kicked open and two teenagers, a goth girl and a boy with glasses dressed in traffic light colors, hopped inside. The boy was twirling what looked like a green accented chrome thermos on one finger.

Without wasting time, the bespectacled boy named Tucker tossed the thermos a little in the air and caught it in his free hand, opening it in the process.

"Good night, everybody!" he said as he aimed the thermos and a bright blue light shot out from the opening. And with quick thinking, Danny Phantom grabbed the Box Ghost and threw him towards the light where it got pulled in and sucked into the thermos with one last scream.

"Perimeter secured," Tucker said with a smug grin as he popped the cap back on.

The goth girl gave him a dry look. "Perimeter secured? What are you, a navy SEAL?" Before Tucker could answer, Danny landed right next to him.

"Seals: aquatic mammals that bark," he said. "They're canines, right?"

The girl, who he knew by the name Sam, checked into the book she had been holding. "Wrong. That's zero for twenty-one."

"I'm no teacher, but I'm guessing that's an F," Tucker said while twirling the thermos once more.

Danny sighed in slight frustration. "C'mon you guys." He hovered a few feet between his two friends. "If you're gonna be my superhero sidekicks, then you gotta be a little more focused." He turned to Sam, "You're supposed to be helping me study for the test tomorrow," then to Tucker, "And you're supposed to be helping me catch all these ghosts, so I'll _have _time to study!"

The group techno-geek pointed to thermos. "What? They're all riiight here," he said. However, it somehow slipped and dropped to the floor with a 'thunk'. And if that wasn't bad enough, it had to land on the release button as well.

Needless to say, all the ghosts that were already caught in it were now flying and laughing away, phasing through the walls into their freedom.

"Haha!" the Box Ghost cheered. "I AM THE BOX GHOST! You cannot hold _me _within the confines of a cylindrical container!" He then flew and disappeared through a wall. The trio just looked on, too stunned in their spots.

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><p>The warehouse where the first ghost she saw disappear into was a little distant from Marceline. Luckily for her, she was a fast runner. In just five minutes of following the spectral signature, she could already see its supposed hiding spot. Not long after, two new signatures suddenly popped into existence: one weak, and one fairly strong. The new signatures were not as strong as the first, which became immobile for some reason while the other two clashed with each other. Also, one of them felt like it was beating the other up. Another five minutes later, Marceline's destination was now within reach. However, she abruptly stopped when several ghosts flew out of the warehouse and scattered in different directions. If she were a higher ranking reaper and got stationed at Amity Park, she'll be out all night hunting down and sending off all those spooks one by one. But she was only around <em>junior<em> level, not to mention the fact that she was only there due to a mission given to her personally by the leader of all the soul reapers of Fiddler's Green despite said ranking. So as much as she wanted to go after those runaway ghosts, she couldn't—this mission was her top priority, nothing else.

_I hope get qualified for a promotion after this. _ She continued on towards her destination. But just as she turned around a corner, Marceline caught a glimpse of something blue headed her way before colliding hard with something and falling backwards onto her posterior. Two groans of pain were heard.

Marceline managed to get on one knee while soothing her aching behind. "Watch where you're going, creep!"

"_You _watch it!" the other person said, as bitterly as she did. As he spoke, the young reaper looked at him more carefully and noticed that the person she just bumped into had blue skin like the dead and had a faint glowing aura around him. Also, he was a tad transparent.

"You're a ghost…" Marceline said as she stood up. Said ghost just looked at her, blinking his rather beady red eyes.

"Duh! I am the Box Ghost!" The other yelled without warning, effectively catching the soul reaper off guard. "Lord of all things cardboard and square!"

Marceline stared at the spook in disbelief and confusion. She half expected him to at least fly away or attack like all the others do when they see a soul reaper. Then again, she hasn't introduced herself yet.

Assuming a serious look, she took her turn to speak. "Well, since you were kind enough to introduce yourself, it's only fair that I do the same. I am Marceline LeGrimm, junior level soul reaper from Fiddler's Green."

"Soul reaper?" the Box Ghost asked, puzzled. "You mean like, the 'Grim Reaper'?"

"Pretty much." She crossed her arms and staring back at him with a bored expression.

He then looked closely at the young lady in the navy blue cavalry uniform who stood before him…

"Pft! No way!" he said in between chuckles. Marceline looked at him, utterly confused. Was there something wrong with this guy?

"You're no reaper! Reapers are mean and scary. _You _are cute, puny, and look positively harmless!"

The young soul reaper stiffened and felt her cheeks warm up at that last remark. Okay, that was rather uncalled for. She had ghosts throw insults at her and her friends whenever they go as a platoon in the World of the Living from time to time. Although being called 'cute' was totally unexpected, being called 'harmless', and not to mention 'puny', was a step out of line (to her). Four feet and eleven inches wasn't puny.

How dare he mock and laugh at the face of Death?

The Box Ghost was still laughing when Marceline drew out her black and silvery white handguns from the holsters strapped to her thighs, aimed, and began firing rapidly—alternating between left and right trigger fingers. The spook yelped as he made sporadic movements to try to avoid being hit by the ethereal bullets, crying out even louder when some shots made it home.

"WHOA! OUCH! STOP THAT, THOSE REALLY HURT! OW!" He went about yelling. Oddly enough, the hail of gunshots stopped at that very instant. The Box Ghost slowly peeked through the gap between his arms that he had raised to his face for protection, and found the young soul reaper had put her guns down and settled for glaring angrily at him. He whistled in relief, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. However, it was only short lived when Marceline charged at him at a quite alarming speed. The Box Ghost let out a yell when she suddenly went up in his face, guns now holstered and a white gloved fist raised and drawn back. Startled as he was, he did that first thing that came to mind and raised his arms in defense while the soul reaper went in for the kill.

Or so the thought…

Although he expected to be in a world of pain, what he got was far from it. Marceline went around his only defense and he felt her fist connect to his face, but just as it began to press into his cheek, it was pulled back immediately. The Box Ghost stared at her in confusion. She stared back, looking determined. The fist she 'hit' with was still raised, though she now held it close.

For some reason, he began to chuckle. Softly at first since he was still feeling nervous from a moment ago, then his chuckles got louder as his fear slowly became overtaken by confidence until he was all out laughing.

"Ha ha! I see that your weak punch is no match for my tough ghostly skin!" He puffed his chest, looking proud. "I barely even felt it! Ha ha ha!"

Marceline simply gave a soft huff. "Oh please, don't flatter yourself," she said in a deadpan manner. "If my bullets could hurt you, then a _real _punch from me would also be painful."

The Box Ghost stopped laughing. "Uh, what?"

The soul reaper unclenched her fist and spread her fingers wide. Resting around her ring finger was a bronze signet band. A symbol resembling a skull with two crossed scythes inside a circle was giving off an eerie white glow at the setting. The same symbol could also be seen on the Box Ghost's left cheek.

"My only intention was to stamp you with this," she said. "By the way, I was shooting you earlier because you annoyed me."

"Huh?"

At that very moment, a thin ring of green light appeared on the ground just below the spook. The Box Ghost began to look downward, wondering what was happening. Sparkling green particles of said light then floated up to his vision, and at the same time, he began to feel a strange prickling sensation on his feet, and it was slowly rising upwards. And for some reason, as the sensation rose, he was also slowly losing feeling of his lower appendages. He looked upon himself, and gave a horrified yelp when he saw that his legs had disappeared!

"Wh-What is happening to me?" he asked in a trembling voice as the prickling sensation was now eating its way to his waist. Marceline just stood watching.

"Hm, green light. I guess it's to the Ghost Zone for you, then," she said, ignoring the question. The ghost began to fidget. "Oh, would you relax? You're not going to disappear or fade away permanently. Like I said, you'll be going to the Ghost Zone, you'll be just fine." By that time, only half of the Box Ghost's torso remained visible.

As for the ghost, hearing that he wouldn't be facing Oblivion soon, was greatly relieved. But his relief was quickly replaced by anger towards the girl in front of him. "You haven't seen the last of me!" He would have pointed at her for emphasis if it weren't for his hands having already vanished.

"I'll be back! And when I do, you best be prepared to face the awesome MIGHT and WRATH of the Box Ghost! BEWARE, SOUL REAPEEEERRR…!" His voice then faded away as soon as his head did.

And now, it was all quiet…

"Tch! _Now _he believes I'm a soul reaper," Marceline said, clearly irritated as she scratched away an itch at the back of her neck. "At least he's gone now. I thought he'll never shut up." She turned towards the warehouse and saw that the door had already been taken down.

"Well, that was convenient." She proceeded inside, not wanting to waste any more time.

* * *

><p>"Hmm…" A deep voice hummed in pondering as its owner watched the Danny and his friends through the red tinted display of his digital binoculars.<p>

"Half human, half ghost. One of a kind." He turned his large metal body that seemed to be well equipped for hunting toward a big cage containing various spectral creatures cramped inside, crying out and squirming around in the tight space. "He'll make a fine addition to my collection," it said with a wide grin. He then turned back to watch the ghost child some more as he spoke to the two humans. But shortly after doing so, a warning popped just below the viewfinder.

"What? Unknown entity detected?" it asked, taking his vivid green eyes off its prime quarry for a moment to search for the 'unknown entity'. The mechanoid hunter floated around, making sure to stay far enough to avoid being found by the ghost boy's ghost sense.

He caught a glimpse of a shadow moving rapidly among the stacks of crates and boxes and proceeded to follow it. He never took its eyes away, not even for a moment, lest it might escape. The ghostly hunter smiled to himself in excitement—this 'unknown entity' could be yet another rare prize aside from the ghost child.

He shook its flaming skull-shaped head, trying to compose himself. It wouldn't do to keep its hopes up. For all he knew, it could be a false alarm.

The shadow stopped moving after moving behind a wide stack and slowly began to move to the side, almost as if peeking at the children still standing and talking a few yards away. The hunter growled; it looked like he was going to have competition for the ghost child. He drifted closer, wanting to know the potential rival better.

The 'rival' must have sensed his presence when all of a sudden; it drew a weapon, turned and aimed at him in a matter of seconds without prior warning. The startled hunter drew back a little, not amused at having to look at the muzzle of a black large-barrel handgun up so close to his face. However, what was even more startling was the one who drew the gun: a teenage girl clad like a soldier and staring at him with narrow suspecting eyes. She appeared more like a human than a ghost due to her healthy peach skin, but the presence of a pale ethereal glow around her body—like all ghosts have—made him think otherwise. Was this the 'unknown entity' he had been searching for?

"Nice reaction time," he said with a smile, deciding to humor her. "But aren't you a little too young to be handling firearms, girl?"

The girl wasn't deterred, remaining steadfast with her gun still aimed at him. Her face was stern and stoic. "Thanks for the complement, but I would appreciate it if you leave right now," she said. "I don't really have time to deal with likes of you."

The hunter suppressed a laugh. "Oh? And what exactly is so important that you seem to be in a hurry?"

"It's really none of your business. But if it'll make you go away and stop bothering me, then fine," she answered. "I've been sent here in the World of the Living under orders to eliminate an anomaly: the infamous ghost boy, Danny Phantom."

The hunter's eyes went wide at the revelation. His previous suspicion was spot on—they truly have the same quarry, except she came as an assassin rather than another hunter.

"Who are you?" the hunter then asked.

The 'rival' answered, "I am Marceline LeGrimm, junior soul reaper from the spirit nation of Fiddler's Green," she said, repeating what she told the Box Ghost earlier. At this, the hunter was once again taken by surprise. A soul reaper? For real? Spirit nations? Fiddler's Green?

"Soul reaper, huh? Really?"

The young soul reaper raised a brow when the hunter stretched out a mechanical arm at her with his mouth stretched into a grin so wide, it could very well split his face in half. She didn't like that look on him, he was plotting something. As a precaution, Marceline rested her hand around the handle of her other gun. The two of them stared at each other, silently daring the other to make the first move.

From a distance, both supernatural beings could hear the voices of Danny and his crew faded away and replaced by the sound of footsteps as the three of them exited through a back door. They grimaced. Their target was moving away! _This is just great_…_I'd better get rid of this bozo before I lose sight of the anomaly._

She called out of the blue to the hunter and broke the silence between them. "Hey you!"

It was his turn to raise a brow, albeit a metal one.

"I gave you my name. Now, it's your turn," the soul reaper continued. "It's a common courtesy where I come from that two combatants must give each other's names before dueling." It was a clear challenge from her for the claim of the prey.

Immediately grasping the meaning behind her words, the mechanoid hunter said, "I see. Very well then, my name is Skulker. I'm a collector of things rare and unique. And the ghost child is one such rare and unique specimen that I must add to my vast collection. However…" His glowing green eyes then came to focus directly at Marceline. "…there is also you, _soul reaper._"

Marceline gasped as the hunter named Skulker fired a series of ectoplasmic rounds at her. Acting quickly, she pulled out her second gun and began firing at the rounds to keep them from reaching her. The ones she missed hit the ground or the crates with splatters of radioactive green and electric blue. She then took off running to hide behind the stacks of crates. Skulker shot at her once again as she ran, but Marceline managed to duck just in time. A few of the blasts destroyed the crate wall, narrowly missing the top of the soul reaper's hat. She quickly popped up soon after and fired back at the hunter in retaliation, but missed when the hunter moved to the side. With her current defensive wall destroyed, Marceline ran and dived behind another while avoiding a third volley from Skulker, who decided to switch to tranquilizer darts, which only succeeded in stabbing the crates and the floor. Deciding on a leveled approach, she jumped up the stack and used it as leverage to send herself in the air. She began rapid firing at Skulker the moment she reached maximum height and flipping her body for a somersault once gravity kicked back in. Her bullets successfully hit the hunter in various places of his battlesuit, but the worst they could do was give it a bunch of tiny deep dents and stall him for a few seconds while she landed on her feet. Marceline scowled at what little damage she managed to inflict; this duel wasn't going to her favor for certain. _That's one tough suit._

Skulker composed himself and laughed. "Was that the best you can do? I admit, you certainly have skill, but they wouldn't do you much good if your attacks simply tickle me." A rocket launcher emerged from one of his shoulders and automatically aimed itself at the soul reaper whose eyes went wide with surprise and disbelief. Was he seriously going to use an explosive rocket on her? And in such a closed area?

With a loud whistle, a rocket launched itself toward her at a rapid speed. Marceline rolled to the side to avoid it, but the rocket simply swerved to her direction rather than hitting the ground. She began to run, but no matter where she went, the rocket followed her, even managing to go around the crates she tried to go behind in. _What the heck?_

"It's a smart homing rocket," Skulker said, answering her silent question. "It doesn't matter where you run or how you try to hide. It'll follow you around until it finally hits you."

"Gee, tell me something I don't know," Marceline snapped back in a sarcastic manner as she kept on running. "Urgh! I seriously don't have time for this!"

She looked behind her and saw the rocket getting closer. She twisted her body around, aiming one gun at the rocket, and pulled the trigger.

_BOOM!_

* * *

><p>"Nice going, Tucker. Do you know how long it's gonna take for Danny to catch all those ghosts all over again?" asked an irritated Sam as she and her two friends walked out a backdoor they found and along the docks.<p>

"Hey, it was an accident," Tucker rebutted. "How was I supposed to know the thermos would land on the release button once it hit the floor?"

"Guys, it's fine. If I go now and really fast, I might just be able to catch those ghosts and go home before midnight," said Danny as he broke the tension between the two.

"But Danny, what about studying?"

"Yeah, dude. The test is tomorrow."

Danny sighed. "Well, I guess—"

_BOOM!_

The trio jumped back at the sound of an explosion wracking in the air. They turned around and saw smoke rising not far from where they stood.

"What was that?" asked Tucker.

"I dunno, but it looks like the smoke's coming from the warehouse we were in," replied Danny. "C'mon, we gotta go check it out." He took off in the air back to the warehouse with his friends following on foot. When they arrived at the scene, the warehouse now had a human sized hole in the wall. A trail of smoke billowed and rose from the hole, and pieces from said wall were scattered in many different directions.

"What the heck happened here?" Danny asked in bewilderment.

Sam noticed something not far away as Danny and Tucker stared at the ruined wall. She shook both their shoulders to catch their attention.

"Guys, look over there," she said, pointing forward. The two boys looked at the direction she was pointing at and noticed something that appeared to be a person struggling to lift his or her (they couldn't tell which from where they were standing) body off the hard ground.

"Well, don't just stand there, you two. We gotta help!" Sam said as she urged and pushed the boys forward. The tree of them jogged towards the fallen person. As they approached, Danny's ghost sense went off. _Man, already? _He stopped and began to look around for any sign of ghosts around, but found none.

"Danny, hurry up!" Tucker called from below when he noticed that the ghost boy was a little ways behind.

"Uhh…yeah," Danny said upon deciding to follow his friends. He will have to come for the ghost later as the current situation seemed urgent.

Upon reaching the fallen person a little later, they noticed that it appeared to be a girl around their age. Her armpit length light chestnut brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and nearly concealed her face from view. Her clothes where dusty and were burn and torn in some places, particularly the sleeves. Her white gloved hands clutched tightly around a pair of handguns—one pure black adorned with silver, and another that was the inverse of the first. And from what the trio could see, the girl's own skin had burns and some scratches. They could hear her faint but labored breathing from her struggles to try and stand.

"Um…A-Are you okay?" Sam asked the girl, who didn't seem to hear her and just kept trying to stand up and wincing at the stinging pain on her arms. The girl manages to get up on one knee after a painful moment.

"Do you want us to take you to the hospital?" Tucker asked. "You don't look so hot."

"I'm fine!" the girl snapped at him, and began to try standing up. However, she stopped once she suddenly got hit by a sudden realization. "Wait, you can see me?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," Sam answered, raising an eyebrow in slight confusion as did Tucker's and Danny's. "Why?"

The girl opened her mouth to answer, but before she could even utter a sound, she fainted—fatigue from exhaustion and pain from her wounds having taken its toll on her.

"Oh, my gosh! What do we do?" Tucker asked as he began to panic.

At this, Sam gave him sharp smack. "Will you calm down? She's not dead. She just passed out."

"Well, I don't know what happened," Danny said, "and I don't think I wanna know, but we can't leave her alone here." He moved closer to the unmoving body and picked it up, adjusting his hold so the girl was cradled against him. And for the second time, his ghost sense went off. He looked around once more and tried to find a ghost nearby, but found nothing. _That was weird…_

"Wait, are you going to take her home with you?" Sam asked when Danny picked the girl up.

The ghost boy looked to his friends. "Where else would I take her? I mean, the hospital sounds good and all, but what would we tell the doctors when they start asking questions?"

Sam and Tucker exchanged glances. Danny had a point—they didn't know anything about this girl. Who was she? Where did she come from? When and how was she in the pier? How and why was she hurt? Why was she dressed in what looked like a military uniform, carrying authentic and possibly functional, weapons? And more importantly, how was she able to avoid getting spotted and arrested while carrying said weapons?

"Alright, we get it," Sam said in understanding. "But what if your family finds out about her?"

"I don't think they'll take it easy when they find a girl in your room," Tucker followed.

"Who said anything about my room?" Danny asked. "Now, come on, we gotta go. We're all probably past our curfew already." He floated off the ground and began to fly away. As he did, Sam noticed the guns lying on the ground in front of her. The girl must have dropped them when Danny carried her. She bent down and picked them up and found that they were a bit heavy to hold—the sign of a truly genuine deadly weapon.

Sam then began to follow Danny and Tucker (who had already went ahead of her) on the way home. She stared at Danny's back, her mind filled with questions while her heart filled with doubt and suspicion about the girl her friend was carrying. She decided to push them away from her mind for now and wait until said girl was awake, hopefully by around tomorrow.

By the time the teens had disappeared, the hulking figure of Skulker floated through the gap of the ruined wall and landed. He was quite confused and disappointed at finding out that the soul reaper had somehow disappeared after the explosion sent her flying through the wall. _That was a stupid move. Shooting a rocket at a near point-blank range—it'll be a wonder if she managed to live. _The ghost child was nowhere to be found as well. He began to scan the area, hoping to find any semblance of a mark or trail that they may have left.

Not long after, he noticed something lying on the ground not far off. He walks closer at the strange object, only to see that it was only a hat.

But wait, it didn't seem to be just any other hat. Skulker bent down, picked it up, and inspected it. It was a cavalry hat by the look of it. It was scorched and a little burned in some places. He turned it around in his hands, and there he noticed the two crossed scythes (real world cavalry hats have twin crossed sabers on them) embroidered on the crown with golden yellow thread. Focusing his scanner on the object in his hands, Skulker found out that it was the same hat worn by the soul reaper. It must have fallen off sometime after the explosion. Skulker smiled at this small victory as he analyzed the item further and found traces of spiritual energy clinging on the fabric of the hat that stretched to a thin trail leading to a larger splatter a few feet away which the hunter guessed was the area the soul reaper landed. Not only that, there were also signs of ectoplasmic energy near the pool which could only belong to no one else but the ghost boy!

"So, the ghost boy decided to help the poor soul reaper," he said to himself in musing. "So she lives… But if I were him, I wouldn't cast aside any suspicion off her."

Skulker quickly thought up a plan. Let's see: his two quarries are together at this point, and the purpose of one of them is to kill the other. However, the other is totally oblivious to the intentions of the first. It didn't sound good, he can't have one rare specimen dead; he wanted them both alive so he can put them on display. Hmm…

Perhaps he should wait a while, and see what happens. When the time is right, he'll swoop in and capture them both. Yes…that could work.

"Soon, my prey…" He held the hat tighter in his mechanical hand. "Soon…"

* * *

><p><strong>Alrighty, this is it for today. What do you guys think? By the way, I'm working on a picture of Marceline so you could see what she looks like if you're having trouble imagining it.<strong>

**Ok, until next time!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Whoo! How long was I out? I don't really know. Fight scenes are hard to write of, let along think of. I did the best I could.**

**And to those who like Anima Alliance, sorry but it had to go. I couldn't think of anything to go on where I left of and I have long since left the Hetalia fandom. Once again, I'm sorry. My other stories, especially Reincarnated may still have a chance, but rereading it gave a sort of dread. I may rewrite my OC's entire character. Seriously, I think I was high on chocolate milk when I first came up with her. Ugh!**

* * *

><p><strong>DANNY PHANTOM: REAPER CHRONICLES<strong>

**II. DEALING WITH A REAPER**

Danny and friends made it to Fenton Works with at least a few minutes 'til curfew to spare. The trip went without a hitch. However, for some reason, his ghost sense kept going off every ten minutes even if there weren't any ghosts in sight. The ghost boy couldn't help but be irritated of his false alarms, not to mention shiver due to the cold that made his teeth chatter. Sam didn't seem to be doing well either—she had the guns in her arms instead of holding them by the handles to keep away suspicion should someone catch sight of them, but that wasn't all. For some strange reason, the guns felt a little heavier as minutes went by, and they were beginning to wear her out.

"I can take one of those off your hands if you want," Tucker said.

Sam practically rejoiced at his offering. "Yes, please!" The technogeek went over and took one of the guns, only to wince at their weight. Like Sam, he decided to hold the weapon in his arms, but not without a little struggle.

"Dang! These things are heavy! And that girl carries _both _of them around?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she really did go through military training to get them," Sam said, taking note of the still unconscious uniform clad figure in Danny's arms.

* * *

><p>Tucker opened the door as Danny had his arms full. All three went inside—Phantom already transformed back to Fenton. The first person to notice them was none other than Jasmine Fenton, also known as Jazz, and Danny's elder sister. She sat on the couch, reading a book when the trio came in.<p>

"Hey, Danny," she said in greeting. For a moment, Danny, Sam, and Tucker seemed to flinch at the sound of her voice. Fortunately, Jazz didn't notice as she kept speaking. "Mom and Dad are in the kitchen."

"Uh, thanks." The younger Fenton turned a little to hide the unconscious girl and yet another warning from his ghost sense from view and gave her a sheepish smile and headed for the stairs, followed by the other two teens. "We'll be going upstairs now, if you don't mind."

"Y-Yeah," Sam said as she held the heavy gun closer to her and wrapped her arms around them in a way she hoped would keep them out of sight.

Tucker followed along. "Don't mind us." The three friends then left in a hurry, leaving Jazz with a slight puzzled and suspicious look on her face before she decided that it probably nothing she should be concerned about and simply resumed her reading.

Once up on the second floor, the trio breathed out sighs of relief at the same time and continued on the empty guest room next to Danny's room. The ghost boy laid the girl, who was now in a deep sleep, onto the bed while Sam and Tucker looked around for a place to put the guns down as they were now clearly struggling to hold them due to their increased weight. Sam went for the empty closet and slowly put down the weapon at the bottom, then began rubbing her arms to sooth the aching muscles.

"Whew! I swear, that thing weighed like a ton," she said. Behind her, Tucker wasn't doing so well.

"You're telling me!" he said as he took slow steps toward the closet. "Just what the heck is this thing made of?" The weight was starting to take its toll on the poor boy, and it didn't take long before Tucker couldn't handle it anymore and he let go.

BAM!

Sam and Tucker's eyes went as big as saucers when the gun fell into the floor…and I meant, _really _fell into the floor—the moment it made hit the flat carpeted surface, it created a depression at least an inch and a half deep.

"Man, I knew it was heavy. But I never thought it could be heavy enough to do that!" Tucker said in disbelief. Then he became nervous. "I hope nobody downstairs heard it crash."

"What just happened?" Danny asked and went over to his friends. Once he saw the gun-shaped hole on the floor, he did a double-take.

"What the heck?! Tucker!"

The technogeek waved his arms in front of him in defense. "Danny, I swear, I didn't mean it!" he rebutted. "I _had _to let go. Its sheer weight was threatening to tear my arms off my shoulders. I'm gonna tell you, man, that girl must be some kind of highly condition government agent or something."

"How am I going to explain this to my parents?!"

Tucker gave a nervous smile. "Um…put a thick sturdy rug on top and hope no one will notice?"

Danny was just about to retort when he got another hiccup from his ghost sense. However, instead of taking an immediate fighting stance, he just frowned—it might be just another false alarm. Danny was starting to get sick of it.

"What the heck is wrong with me today?" he asked, quite vexed and putting aside the matter of the hole in the floor for the moment. "My ghost sense just keeps acting up, but when I look around, there's no ghost!"

Sam shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know. Maybe it's one of those random things like going intangible or invisible without meaning to."

"Perhaps, but those never happened as often as my ghost sense in one day." Another hiccup and a plume of blue mist came out of the ghost boy's mouth.

"Uuuhh…" The trio turned to their guest as she let out a pained moan. In their little discussion, they almost forgot the reason they took her in the first place.

"We have to treat those wounds," Sam then said as she pulled open a few other drawers from the dresser and the closet. "Got any first-aid kits lying around?"

"I think there's one down at the lab," Danny answered, ignoring the next hiccup. "I'll go check." He went back downstairs, past his sister, past his parents working on an invention at the dining table, and into the basement that doubled as a laboratory for his parents and went searching and rummaging in several places looking for any semblance of a first-aid kit or something similar. He found a small white metal case with a red cross and a Fenton logo a couple of minutes later in a shelf, hidden behind the several containers of ectoplasmic residue samples. Carefully pushing the fragile glass containers aside, he then slowly takes out the kit and ran back upstairs though he decided to go invisible while running past his family. He didn't feel like taking questions he knew he wouldn't be able to answer without them, more precisely, his parents, suspecting a ghost and immediately going battle ready.

Once back in the guest room, Danny went visible again and handed over the kit to Sam. The goth girl opened it too check the contents to see if all that she needed were available.

"Okay, it looks like you've got everything." She then turned to the two boys. "Alright, you two, get out."

The boys were taken aback. "What? Why?" Danny asked.

"We wanna help too!" Tucker said, looking a tad upset.

Sam nearly slapped a palm to her face. "That's not it at all. What I meant is that I'll have to patch her up."

"Yeah, we know that," Danny said, crossing his arms. "So why can't Tucker and I help?"

Sam gave an exasperated groan at their cluelessness. "Hello! Don't you two get it?" She gestured to the lying figure. "She's a girl." She then pointed at them. "You're boys. That girl most likely has injuries at her front. Wouldn't it be awkward if you need to open her blazer and shirt to check them out?"

Danny and Tucker thought for a moment before realization finally hit them and understood what Sam was getting at. Both boys began to feel uncomfortable as their faces grew warm and pink patches decorated their cheeks.

"You know what? You're right," Danny said, rubbing his bicep upon habit. "You go on ahead and fix her up." He turned to leave.

"Yeah, we'll be right outside in case you need us," Tucker added and went out right after Danny, shutting the door behind him.

Once they were gone, Sam turned back to the sleeping stranger in front of her and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Alright, time to get started."

The first thing Sam did was removing the weird-looking necktie and unbuttoned the dirty and hole-y navy blue blazer only to see the once white button shirt underneath decorated with small holes and splotches of red…and green?

"Whoa! Wasn't expecting that," she muttered to herself, but continued on to unbutton said white shirt and slowly and carefully lifted it off the girl's body. She stopped for a bit when the girl winced and hissed in pain. Sam waited a bit for her to settle down and a little more in case her charge woke up. When she didn't, the goth girl continued until the shirt was opened all the way and all that was left was the equally ruined camisole. She pushed it up and almost gasped at what she saw—while she perfectly understood the numerous cuts, bruises, and the small pieces of shrapnel lodged on her charge's pale peach skin, the thing that completely threw her off was the green substance that trickled out of them along with blood. With curiosity outweighing her shock and possible fear, Sam gathered a small sample of the green stuff on her finger and took a closer look. The first thing she noticed was the soft glow it gave off in the moderately lit room. It strongly reminded her of the same stuff that the Fenton parents keep in small glass containers in a shelf down at their lab. Sam looked down at the girl with a careful examining gaze. For the most part, the girl appeared to be a simple oddly dressed human; but then Sam noticed the faint white spectral glow around her body—the same kind ghosts and Danny (as Phantom) have.

Recalling the events of the three of them finding the girl and Danny's ghost sense going off like mad, Sam put two and two together: the girl sleeping on the bed before her was a ghost…or half-ghost? She had seen her ghost fighting best friend get cut up a few times and caught a glimpse of both red and green oozing from his wounds. She felt a bit ecstatic from her discovery—Danny wasn't the only half-ghost kid to exist anymore! She couldn't wait to tell him.

But wait a minute; Sam felt apprehension rise in her chest. From her and her friends' recent encounters with ghosts so far, none of the said spooks were friendly. Half-ghost or not, what if this one suddenly began attacking the moment she woke up? Should she really tell Danny and Tucker?

Then again, on the other hand, the potentially semi-spectral subject was currently injured, out cold, and positively harmless; especially when unarmed. And she appeared so human-like that she could walk around Amity Park in broad daylight and no one would be able to tell the difference. In fact, the most probable reason Danny decided to take her in was because he thought she was just another human who was at the wrong place and at the wrong time due to her looks. Although it was a wonder how she got her injuries in the first place.

Sam opened the first-aid kit once more. Although it was fully stocked, she didn't know if it would do any good with her patient being a partial ghost and all. But seeing that there aren't any other choices that wouldn't have Danny, and quite possibly, his parents, running inside, she had to just go through with it.

"Okay, let's just get this over with." With that, she went to work.

* * *

><p>While Sam attended to the stranger, Danny and Tucker stood outside the room with the ghost boy leaning on the wall and the techie on the railing, playing games on his PDA. Both were wondering about the same subject of the girl they took in.<p>

"Where do you think she came from?" Tucker asked, his eyes never leaving the small screen.

Danny shrugged. "Who knows? It's like she came out of nowhere after we heard the explosion," he said.

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "It was like she was fighting something before we showed up."

"Or _someone._ Whoever or whatever it was, it was strong enough to kick her butt…even with those ultra-heavy guns she had."

At the mention of 'guns', Tucker seemed to perk up. "Speaking of guns, it's really bizarre how heavy they were. I saw Sam pick them up while you carried the girl, and she carried them just fine…at least until a while later when she started to struggle with them."

"That _is _bizarre," Danny said with a hint of puzzlement in his voice. "From the way to talk about it, it sounded like they slowly got heavier the longer you and Sam held on to them."

"Exactly!"

The guestroom chose creaked open at that very moment, and Sam poked her head out.

"Alright boys, it's safe to come in now," she said with a smile.

The boys looked at her, rather unbelieving. "Done already?" Tucker asked.

"That was quick," Danny said.

"Nah, not really. Cleaning up and patching her injuries were easy enough, but taking out bits and pieces of shrapnel from out of her skin felt like an eternity since I had to be really careful."

"Shrapnel?" Danny couldn't believe that the girl was _that _hurt. In his rumbles and tumbles with ghosts, the worst injuries he got were sore muscles, a few scrapes, and bruises that were hidden well enough by his clothes. He couldn't imagine how painful having sharp pieces of stone, wood, or metal lodged in parts of his body was like since all he had to do was go intangible. Whatever fight she gotten herself into must have been more serious than he thought. His mind came up with dozens of probable speculations, most of which involved secret agents and government spies.

"You think she's gonna be okay?" Tucker asked out of the blue as he went inside with Danny behind him, breaking the ghost boy's train of thought.

"Well, she should be," Sam answered. "I think she'll be up and running again by tomorrow, but I'm not sure. I'm no doctor." The three teens gazed down at the fourth who was now tucked snugly under the bedcovers, also by Sam's courtesy.

"I hope you're right," Danny said.

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

"Oops!" Tucker dug into his pockets and took out his beeping PDA. On the small screen, the message "go home" flashed in big capital letters.

"Time for me to go, dude," he said. "It's pretty late."

"I need to get home too," Sam followed. "If I'm not in by ten-thirty, my parents might call the entire police department, the army, and the SWAT team just to find me."

All three friends then let out small chuckles at that little joke. But then Sam's smile turned upside down and her expression became rather indifferent.

"I'm serious," she said. Both boys just kept laughing for a little longer before finally stopping.

Danny mocked wiping a tear from his eye. "Okay, okay, if you say so. See you guys tomorrow?"

"Don't we always?" Tucker asked rhetorically as he and Sam began to leave.

"See ya!" Sam waved a little.

"Later dude!" They shut the door slowly to avoid waking the sleeping girl on the bed. As soon as they were gone, Danny's ghost sense went off again, much to his annoyance.

"Ugh! I really hope this clears out by tomorrow." Giving the girl one last glance, Danny left the room as well to study…then came back in two seconds later to pull the large rug from the center of the room to the side in order to hide the ruined spot on the floor.

The rest on the night went by quietly and without any incidents.

* * *

><p>Danny, for the first time in a while, woke to the early blaring of his alarm clock the following morning and went about to do his morning routine. While doing so, he wondered how the girl was doing. So, as soon as he finished changing out of his pajamas, he went into the guestroom to check on his...guest.<p>

Nothing seemed to have changed or gone out of place other than the rug he moved last night, even the girl was still tucked in the blankets the same way he saw. It was like she never moved at all while asleep. Danny went to open the curtains and the window to let some sunlight in. Light spread around the room, but the girl remained still. Though he didn't let it bother him.

"Everything seems to be in order," he said to himself in musing. "Time for breakfast."

Unfortunately, just as he made a few paces towards the door, his ghost sense kicked in. "Oh, come on! This early?" Seeing as he was alone in the room and the girl wasn't waking up anytime soon, Danny transformed into Phantom and flew through the open window, looking around for ghosts that decided to disturb the peace.

"This better not be another false alarm." He went flying around searching for anything out of the ordinary, but so far finding none. He flew back inside, frustrated.

"Well, that was a waste of time," he said, changing back to Fenton. As soon as he did, a soft groan made its way to his ears. Danny turned around, only to see the girl from last night squirming on the bed and groaning, though her movements were weak and a little strained. Her brows were furrowed and her eyes still shut, except they were shut tight compared to last night. The ghost boy watched and waited by the bedside while the girl began stretching like a cat and slowly open her eyes. Danny walked over to the side of the bed out of a mixture of concern and curiosity. The girl then began to look around as if to take in her new surroundings before turning her still tired and unfocused gaze at his direction.

A little later, he began to feel a bit uncomfortable when she kept staring at him. He decided to break the ice by greeting her with a simple "Hi". The girl didn't answer, but rather just blinked her eyes a few times before going back to staring at him—this time with an addled look on her face.

Danny tried one more time. "Are…Are you okay?"

Again, he got no answer from her. However, she moved to lift herself up in an attempt to sit up. But once she managed to get up halfway, she hissed and put a hand to her torso where she felt sharp stinging pains.

"Hey, careful!" The ghost boy, quick to act in alarm, moved close to her side and held the girl's shoulders to keep her from falling back onto the mattress due to the pain.

"You're still a little hurt from last night," he said as he fluffed and stacked the only two pillows, arranging them in a reclining position. Once done, he gently eased the girl back down. "Don't overdo it, okay?"

"L-Last…night?" Her first words in a while came forth. Danny nodded.

"Yeah, my friends and I found you lying face down on the street at the docks, remember? We tried to talk to you, but you passed out." At this, memories from several hours prior came rolling back into the girls mind. Indeed, she remembered being surrounded by three concerned teens while struggling to get back on her feet after getting blasted through a wall of a warehouse by a homing rocket shot by a ghost clad in a heavy mechanical suit. She gazed down at herself, at her front now wrapped in gauze, made her realize that she was worse off than she first thought.

Well, that and her blazer was open, and her white button shirt and camisole were missing. And although the bandages covered enough to be considered decent, her sense of modesty kicked in like a slap to the face. The girl squeaked and immediately pulled the blazer closed around herself and turned her face away in embarrassment.

"How much did you see?" she asked, her voice becoming a bit edgy.

"What?" Danny asked in turn, having not a clue at what she meant.

"How much did you see of me?" She sounded a little more apprehensive. The ghost boy blushed at what his guest was implying.

"Oh! N-no. I didn't see anything. My friend, Sam, was the one who fixed you up and…" A pillow came flying to his face, but he managed to catch it before it hit home. From her place, the girl was giving him a hard glare; her cheeks as flushed as his.

"Hey! Sam is a girl!" He glared back at her. "She kicked me and my other friend, Tucker, out of the room before treating you!" The girl merely huffed and attempted to bury her face on the pillow to hide her cheeks that had now turned pink with _slight _embarrassment.

"Well…" she said, clearing her throat a bit. "I suppose that was, indeed, rather rude from my part." She spoke in such a refined manner that was only heard from those higher up the social status ladder minus the condescension. "I apologize for assuming the worst from you. Especially…" She stopped as if suddenly coming to an epiphany, immediately she sat up, modesty forgotten, and her gaze snapped straight to the boy before her with confusion written all over her face.

"Wait a minute," she said. "Are you…a human?"

It was Danny's turn to be confused. "Yeah. Why?"

The girl's eyes seemed to bug out of her head at his answer. "And you can see me?"

"You're sitting right there, and looking as visible as daylight. Of course I can see you!" That was such a strange question to ask somebody. "Look, I have no idea how and why you got hurt, but you must have hit your head somewhere along the way and you're acting kinda weird." A pregnant silence followed, the boy's guest seemed to be at a loss for something to say.

Danny decided to break the ice once again when his ghost sense acted up. "Heheh, it's really cold in the mornings isn't it?" he tried to cover up, but only ending up sounding stupid. He quickly decided to change the subject before things got any weirder. "Okay, why don't we go over this one more time, and do it the right way?" He held out an open hand. "Hi. I'm Danny, Danny Fenton. And you are…?"

The girl didn't move, just stared at him with a calculating look in her eyes. Danny Fenton…Danny Fenton…The name rang familiar to her. Where had she heard it before? If she remembered correctly, the sole reason she was sent out in the living world in the first place was to hunt down some guy and…

Her mind fully connected everything as if with a click.

* * *

><p>The ghost boy didn't know what the hell he did wrong. He was patient with her even when she just stared at him funny when he introduced himself to her and held out his half of a handshake, which was a part of a planetwide gesture of friendship unless you're actually form a planet other than Earth. So he was pretty much caught off guard when his guest suddenly snatched and pull on his wrist with one gloved hand, grabbed his throat with the other, and took him down to the floor hard enough to see stars. It all happened so fast that his brain was spinning in his cranium. Once his senses got back into order, he found himself lying flat on his back and staring up at a pair of angry midnight-green eyes.<p>

"Hey! What the hell?!" He tried to get back to his feet, but found out that his guest was sitting on them. "What on earth's the matter with you?!"

The girl ignored his question, and held on tighter, making Danny choke. "In the name of Fiddler's Green, and by order of Commander Davy Jones, you are hereby sentenced to be executed…Danny _Phantom!_"

"What!" Danny began to panic. The girl called him 'Phantom'. That meant someone found out his secret somehow, and now for some reason, wanted to kill him! And what the hell was that about Fiddler's Green and Davy Jones?

"Get off me!" With one strong push, he got the crazy girl flying back screaming…out the open window. "Oh no!"

He quickly transformed to his alter-ego, Danny Phantom, and flew out after her.

"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead…" he chanted to himself as he frantically searched for her, but finding nothing. "This is _so _not how I planned on spending my Tuesday morning." He then gasped. "Crap! Tuesday! The test!" All thoughts of a potentially deceased guest flew out of his mind in an instant at that moment, opting to go back to the room to take a peek at the clock—there was some time, half an hour at best. He sighed in relief and wiped the sheen of sweat forming on his brow.

_POW! BAM!_

Danny cried in pain and held his aching face after being struck twice by two unidentified solid objects flying out the same window and sent him reeling backwards. The hits came so hard, he could have sworn that his nose broke. Luckily enough for him, it was still intact despite the damage.

Though still floating upside down while the pain subsided, the ghost boy caught sight of the flying objects that hit him and to his surprise, saw that they had a layer of energy surrounding them as they continued to fly forward…

And right into the waiting hands of the very person who wanted him dead.

"What the…" was all he could manage and righted himself, disbelief apparent in his glowing green eyes. "No. No way. You're a ghost?"

The angry, and perhaps deranged teenage girl once believed to have fallen to her doom, glared at him from her place in the air as she floated just like Danny was doing. She now held her prized weapons in her hands; locked, loaded, and very ready for use.

Danny glared back, unafraid. "So this is why my ghost sense kept going off like crazy. It was reacting to you! You were a ghost the whole time."

The girl huffed. "Me? A ghost? Please…" The condescension was starting to show. "Don't compare me to those emotionally unstable bundles of ectoplasm and post-living consciousness."

"Okaaaay…Then, what _are _you? _Who _are you?"

"I am junior grim reaper, Marceline LeGrimm. I am here in the human world for one purpose alone, and that is to kill you, ghost boy." The girl now known to Danny as a grim reaper named Marceline, raised and aimed one of her pistols at him—the smooth round crystal that took the place of the barrel shone bright with the energy flowing in it.

Danny couldn't believe what he had heard. "Grim reaper?" He looked Marceline over carefully, then began laughing. Now where did that happen before?

One of the neophyte reaper's eyes began to twitch in her annoyance and irritation. "Quiet you!" she said, half yelling. "I'm serious. Especially the killing you part!"

"Sorry, it's just that you don't really look 'grim' enough to be a reaper. You look more like a normal human girl who's going to a Civil War re-enactment. And junior? Does that mean like you just got out of grim reaper school? Wait, is that even a thing?" Danny said in between chuckles. "Plus, you don't even have that big…sharp thing they carry around."

"You mean a scythe?" Marceline asked in a dry tone.

"Yeah, that thing."

Oh, he was _so _going down. "Hmph! While your assumptions may have a semblance of truth, I assure you, Phantom, that I'm pretty damn capable of doing my job. In fact, let me give you a demonstration." With that, she started firing rounds in succession.

"Whoa!" Danny immediately zipped to the side, successfully dodging the hail of bullets that punched the surrounding walls of the building full of holes.

"Wow, you weren't kidding," he said.

"I don't play around," Marceline said in turn and held out her other gun, and began shooting with both. Danny was forced to perform incredible aerial acrobatics just to keep from getting hit; though one bullet managed to scrape him at the bicep, tearing the suit and skin, leaving a gash oozing red and green ichor. He yelped in pain, and covered the wound his hand by force of instinct. "By the way, these _guns _are my scythe," she added.

He cast a glare at the young grim reaper, feeling a mixture of anger and fear at the source of his current predicament.

"Why do you even want to kill me anyway?" he asked, raising his voice. "What did I do wrong? All I've been doing is keeping other ghosts from causing trouble. I'm not out to hurt anybody nor do I plan to!" It was true at most. Ever since getting his powers, he swore to use them for good—defending Amity Park from the malevolent ectoplasmic malefactors that manage to come out of the very portal his parents built. And though he still has a lot to learn when using said powers, he managed to keep the city peaceful and keep his secret identity hidden. Although the problem was balancing his superhero work with his school work and teen life.

Instead of getting an answer, however, there was a flash of movement and Danny found himself pinned yet again—this time, he was pressed on the wall and being held by his neck once again and his chest pressed on by one of her knees.

He coughed a few times, latching both hands onto the arm whose hand was squeezing his throat, trying and failing to dislodge his attacker.

"You have a thing for strangling me, don't you?" he said, trying to be funny and make light of the situation despite being terrified for his life deep down, and even more so when he felt the cold metal muzzle of one of her pistols press on his forehead. Danny's ghostly heart was going a mile a minute. This was it. His head's gonna be blown to bits, and all will it take was a pull of a trigger.

"It's nothing personal, really." He heard her speak. "Like I've said, I'm only following orders."

"Yeah? From who?" he asked. One of his enemies he tossed back into the Ghost Zone must have contracted her somehow to end him; that was the only possible way he could think of.

"My boss, Davy Jones. Weren't you listening when I told you?" she answered.

For a moment, Danny's fear of death disappeared. "Davy Jones? You mean that guy in pirate stories with the locker?"

Marceline wasn't amused. "Okay, now you're just being annoying." She pressed the gun harder. "Now shut up and take your punishment like a man!" Her trigger finger began moving. To Danny, it seemed like it was going at a suspenseful slow-motion.

_NO!_

In his panic, Danny shot her with a ghost ray. The other was sent back, crying in pain and clutching the left side of her chest. He flew off the wall, seething in fury at her and hands aglow with ectoplasmic energy gathering in his palms.

"Look, I don't know what your boss' deal with me, but no way I'm just gonna give up just like that!" he said in anger. He shot more blasts her way, which she countered with gunshots. The two powers cancelling each other out and vanishing instantly upon contact. Marceline then began strafing—firing shots at Danny while flying—having all the advantages of her training while all he had was luck on his side as he wasn't proficient enough with his powers yet.

Marceline moved fast. Her bullets were faster. Using a little imagination, Danny created an ecto-shield to protect himself. It worked like a charm as the rounds bounced harmlessly off the surface. He then retaliated by throwing blasts at her, which she dodged with barely an effort. She sneered at him.

"This is way too easy," she said. "You might as well just give up and save me this trouble." Deciding to get into close quarters, Marceline disappeared and reappeared in his face in a flash and gave him a mighty roundhouse kick. The ghost boy rapidly went flying some feet away and hit a billboard. The neophyte reaper once more went over to him in a quick flash, but maintained distance.

"Guh! What the heck was that?" Danny asked as he recovered from the blow. "You can teleport?"

The latter crossed her arms. "Tch! I don't see why I have to explain myself of a soon-to-be-dead man, though I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. To put it simply, I used high-speed instantaneous movement. Only ghosts teleport." She then aimed for him again, her gun crystals audibly humming with more power being channeled into them. "Hold still while I blow you to bits."

Danny swiftly peeled himself off the billboard and began to ready his own attack. "Not gonna happen!"

He threw a powerful green blast just as Marceline fired a couple of her own blue ones. People ambling to their own businesses below and around them got startled to full awakening from their early morning daze by the loud explosion the two energies, opposing and slightly mismatched in power, met and practically collided with one another. The force of the blast sent the two teenage combatants in opposite directions—Danny went into an alley and landed in a hidden dumpster while Marceline painfully dropped on the rooftop of a small building by a street corner, bouncing at least once when she hit the concrete. She hissed when she felt her wounds from the night before reopen under the coat of bandages.

She swore under her breath. It was unbelievable how difficult the mission was turning out to be. If she weren't hurt, she would have taken out the damn half-dead anomaly before sunrise and she would be already home, being praised for a job well done and probably an early invitation to the Journeyman Grim Reaper Promotion Exams with her platoon and earn their second star before anyone else in their batch.

"This. Is. Stupid!" She groused out loud in frustration as she got back up and took flight to search for her target.

* * *

><p>From the dumpster, Danny shook some orange peels and candy wrappers from his hair before floating up and proceeding to remove other pieces of smelly garbage stuck on his person.<p>

"Great, now I have to take another shower," he said, grumbling. He flew a little higher, only to back up and hide once he saw Marceline zip by; and boy, she didn't look happy. He mused to himself—there must be another way back home. He doesn't have much time left before the first bell to start ringing, so coming up with a plan was out of the question.

He stayed put and watched the angry reaper girl fly around until she was out of sight. At the very moment she disappeared from his line of vision, he took the opening and made a beeline for his house. The garbage made him feel clammy as he flew, but it would soon be gone once he goes back through the window and into the bathroom and scrub off the filth. A glance at the nearby clock tower alerted him that he only had little time left to leave for school. The guest room window started to become close at hand. Almost there…

"Found you!"

"What the—"

He heard a sharp zing in the air and a hole was punched on the windowsill. Danny turned around and found Marceline just a few feet in front of him. A hint of bluish smoke could be seen billowing out of the black gun that he swore was aimed at his head.

"Look, can't we settle this some other time? I'm gonna be late for school if I don't leave now!" He tried to explain, but she wasn't convinced despite it being the truth.

"Like I'll believe that!" she said and began shooting again. Danny quickly ducked to avoid them.

"Leave me alone!" He shot back with an ecto-blast at her. It made home, making the reaper drop her weapons and she began to fall out of the sky like a rock, screaming.

Now, if Danny hadn't dedicated himself to be a somewhat of a hero or protector; or if he didn't have any morals whatsoever, he would have just let Marceline plummet down onto the incoming rush hour traffic. But that wasn't how he worked. Plus, if Sam and Tucker found out that he beat up and let a 'weak' and 'defenseless' person die, they'll never forgive him.

So he went and swooped down to save the falling reaper, albeit begrudgingly…and be rewarded with a punch to the face.

"OW! What the hell was that for? I just saved your life!" he said, miraculously maintaining his bridal hold on her. "Twice."

"I didn't ask for it, you pox-marked ruffian!" Marceline said in retort.

"Ooh, nice insult. Did you learn that from your grandma?" He got another punch, but it was more halfhearted than the first—hardly enough to make him flinch.

"If I weren't so wounded and weak at this very moment, I would have—rgh!" One hand snapped back to her chest in an attempt to soothe the stinging pain that suddenly budded there.

"You okay?" Danny asked.

"What does it look like, you berk?!" she snapped as the pain subsided. Though she had to admit, it has become rather easier to do so without her reaper's badge getting in the way.

Wait…

What?

Hands clad in white cloth gloves went patting all over the young reaper's person in a frantic frenzy; expression becoming that of fear and panic. Marceline squirmed in Phantom's arms in her desperate search for her now missing badge, disregarding the very fact that she was being carried.

"Hey! What is it now?" he asked in his exasperation as he kept adjusting his hold on her to keep her from falling, though his questions where unheard as Marceline kept mumbling: "Where is it? Where is it?"

"Where's what? And will you _stop _this? It's already hard enough that I'm carrying you."

"M-My badge, it's gone!" She then took her hanging fringes into her grasp and began to pull at them. "How can it possibly disappear when it's always pinned on my person? No, no, I can't be without it!"

"Whoa, calm down. Can't you just get a new one? I mean, they must have loads at wherever it is you work."

_SMACK!_

Danny inwardly screamed a load of expletives as he flinched at another angry blow from Marceline. It was nothing compared to being hit twice with a pair of flying deadly firearms before, but it was enough to make him let her go. The two of them remained floating in place with the other giving him the angriest stink-eye she could muster.

"You think a grim reaper's badge is just some cheap trinket that anyone can just get so easily?" She almost growled at him. "If that were true, then all the backbreaking training received at the academy would have been a huge _bloody _joke!" Danny winced at the emphasis she put into the last few words, his previous pains forgotten. The girl proved to be just as scary as Sam when angered—scary as all other angry girls even.

He decided to settle his in a manner deemed most logical.

"There's really a grim reaper school?"

Marceline's palms met her face with a faint slap, groaning in teeth-grinding frustration before swooping downwards to look the lost item in the streets. It must have fallen off when she got ecto-blasted because there was absolutely now way a weak blast like that could have destroyed it in any way. Danny looked on, not wanting to bother her lest he risked getting hit again. And he really needed to get to school, fast. This majorly important matter can _not _be stressed enough.

"So, uh, it looks like you're gonna be busy for a while. I don't want to disturb you, so I'll just…go." He shot away as fast as he could before the other could say or do anything else, not with Marceline too busy as she was now to notice.

One sonic shower and a quick grab of buttered toast later, Danny Fenton was out the door and on the way to Casper High; barely making it to the ringing of the first bell.

* * *

><p>From atop a building, Ghost Zone's greatest hunter remained invisible as he watched the showdown between the grim reaper and the ghost boy. It had been quite a spectacle that he was sure one of them was bound to kill the other in the end. He didn't even need to do any meddling at all since for some reason, one had a bone to pick with the other.<p>

It was a perfect plan that only required patience on his part. And once a victor emerges, only then will the hunt truly commence. Although, which of the two to root for was a tough decision—the boy was marvelous specimen as there wasn't anything else like him in existence, and grim reapers were quite a rare sight the Ghost Zone as they were known to spend most of their time in the Human World. He had encountered a couple so far in separate incidents; both dressed in navy blue American cavalry garb and were of higher rank than the girl, and definitely a lot more powerful. He learned so the hard way when he tried to capture one and miserably failed, forcing him to wear a metal suit as the damages he received were so extensive.

The once he was currently observing, however, was far younger than those other ones. She was greenhorn compared to them—barely out of training and at about the same age as the half-ghost whelp.

His core sang the moment he saw and heard both quarries exchange shots. Even more so when Phantom got kicked to the billboard near him. It took almost all his self-control to resist from jumping in when they nearly blew each other's face off with powerful blasts that he were sure were the deciding finishers.

But the thrill began to dwindle when Phantom went and saved the reaper from falling after blasting her for what he thought was the final time though the latter was still alive. It soon became maudlin as they began talking despite their comical interaction. The next thing the hunter knew, one of the prey had retreated while the other lingered, flying around and looking as if she were trying to find something. He growled to himself. Just what happened to all that bravado? Why did they suddenly stop trying to kill each other? No good, no good at all.

It seemed that a little meddling would be needed after all.


End file.
